Infant feeding practices and associated factors among HIV-positive mothers of infants aged 0-6 months at public health facilities in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

BACKGROUND: In the era of HIV infection, exclusive breast-feeding highly recommended for infants aged less than 6 months. Avoidance of exclusive breast-feeding by HIV-infected mothers recommended when replacement feeding is acceptable, feasible, affordable, sustainable and safe. The prevalence of exclusive breast-feeding has remained very low worldwide. Despite this fact, there is limited information on infant feeding practices of HIV-positive mothers and factors that affect the practice in the current study area.

OBJECTIVE: This study assessed the magnitude of infant feeding practice and associated factors among HIV-positive mothers of infants aged 0-6 months at public health facilities in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

METHODS: A multicenter facility-based cross-sectional study design was employed among a total of 397 study participants. The study participants were selected using a simple random sampling technique. The completeness of the data was checked, coded, cleaned and entered into Epi-data version 4.6 software, and exported to SPSS version 24 for analysis. Descriptive statistics and Binary logistic regression model were employed for the analysis with adjusted odds ratio (AOR) with a 95% CI and a P value ≤ 0.05 to determine the strength of association between infant feeding practice and its independent factors.

RESULTS: The overall magnitude of appropriate infant feeding practice among HIV-positive mothers was 82.6% (95% CI 80.9-88.2). Good knowledge of mother's toward infant feeding (AOR: 1.26, 95%, CI 1.11-3.34), better household monthly income, ≥ 6001 Ethiopian birr (AOR: 1.62, 95% CI 1.33-5.14) and favorable attitude of mother's toward infant feeding (AOR: 1.71, 95% CI 1.01-2.92) were statistically significant associated factors with the recommended way of infant feeding practice.

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: Hence, the current study area is the capital city of the Ethiopia, where a relatively educated population lived in, there was an opportunity for better income, and appropriate infant feeding practice among HIV-positive mothers was found slightly higher than even the overall national target (70%) that was planned by 2020. Therefore, different stakeholders should develop strategic plan to excel females' education coverage and thereby their knowledge and attitude toward infant feeding to fully eradicate mother-to-child transmission of diseases.